


Evanesco

by mrtvejpes



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Awkward Boners, Awkward Conversations, Banter, Boys Being Boys, Eventual Relationships, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Hand-Holding And Cock-Holding, Kidick Squad, Kihyuk Are Soulmates As Always, M/M, Pining, Public Hand Jobs, Quidditch, Serious Injuries, Some Humor, This Takes Place in the Hospital Wing, Underage Drinking, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, kiho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 11:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrtvejpes/pseuds/mrtvejpes
Summary: “What are you doing?” asked Kihyun, sizing him up with placidity Hoseok wouldn't expect from a Slytherin who was obviously left at someone else's mercy. At a Hufflepuff's mercy. A huge Hufflepuff's mercy.“Carrying you.”“You don't want to do that.”“And why is that?” Hoseok raised his eyebrows. Did the Danny DeVito think that he wouldn't be able to pick him up?





	Evanesco

“By Voldemort's ugly mug, everyone knows that Slytherins pay their way into the team, but I had no idea that you were _this_ bad at flying,” rasped Hoseok, his voice pouring out slowly as though from a leaking faucet. Every word and every breath clamped his chest and throat.

Kihyun, who lay on the hospital bunk beside him, was silent. His silence prompted Hoseok to button it. He grumbled, half-hearted, already regretting that he'd said anything. He had other things to worry about than the small Slytherin.

For one, his head still pulsed. A mist of dark, peach-coloured light oozing from two tiny lamps suffused the space around him. The migraine that had crept up on him blurred the world around him into one shade, which made it a real strain to focus on about just anything, which in turn made the throb in his temples all the more worse.

Hoseok knew all about cause and effect thanks to the short rendezvous with Physics in his old elementary school, and he didn't like where this was going. It looked like he was bound to fall asleep with a nerve-splitting headache and wake up with it as well.

Wrapped in gauze from head to chest, Hoseok was a perfect pile of self-pity. He shuffled on the bed, holding back a pained sound that he'd almost released through his nose. His ribs were _killing_ him.

Screw falling asleep. There was no way he could sleep sore like this.

But, well. He supposed he should be glad that he didn't end up like Kihyun.

The accident – _which Kihyun had caused_ and which the commentator called The Small Bang _–_ had cost Hoseok a couple of bruised ribs and the biggest headache of his life. Kihyun was worse off. He'd broken both of his arms, his leg, and his nose. What a pity, too. For all it was worth, Yoo Kihyun had one graceful nose – or used to have.

Hoseok turned to look at it. The otherwise straight slope of Kihyun's profile was distorted by a thick splint on the bridge of his nose, sitting there harsh and crusted with dark blood from beneath. Light glazed his skin into one shapeless, peachy plane. The tip of his chin seemed sharper somehow as he lay there sallow and motionless, but that may have been just because Hoseok was used to seeing Kihyun with his face buried in books. On the field he was the same, spiralling away from Hoseok's unforgiving Bludgers with his chin tucked in.

He was a focused fella, this one. As small as he appeared without the Quidditch gear or the flowy Hogwarts robes, he was a boy-sized war when on a broomstick. War and ruins. Looking at him now, Hoseok sort of suspected that Kihyun hadn't meant to crash into him. Because if he had, he'd have found a cleverer way to do it. One that didn't include him getting broken like a dropped mirror. The boy's bones were _pulp_.

Hoseok kind of felt bad. If he wasn't so huge, Kihyun would be better off and in one piece, at least that bird-of-prey nose of his would've been, anyway.

The longer Hoseok looked, the more shadows he saw cross Kihyun's face, breaking through the shallow waters of the light streaming over it. His eyes were narrowed, eyelids not moving at all. Cadaverous. Controlled.

Hoseok watched, and watched, and his body grew heavier in the rickety bed.

“Tell me something,” he blurted out.

As his voice died down, for a few seconds there was nothing. No sound. _One_ sound, as a matter of fact – the sound of silence that grew piercing.

“Tell you what?” asked Kihyun at last.

“I dunno. Anything. Something I don't know.”

“That would be a lot of things,” murmured Kihyun.

The fall hadn't smoothed his shard-sharp edges. Hoseok thought to himself that this would be a great moment to stop and sulk, but he'd been sulking for hours now and it didn't really seem to work for him. He was bored to the bone.

“Don't be snippy,” he coaxed. “It's sorta your fault we're stuck here, you know. The least you can do is humour me a little.” He waited for a response, and when it didn't come, he carried on. “I have a massive migraine because of you.”

“You'd make a man cry.”

“My mission in life: making Slytherins cry.”

“Ambitious.”

Kihyun sounded flat, like an ocarina that had been out of tune for quite a few days. Like he spoke from behind a wall of smoke – from behind a wall of honey. That was new, too. This deadness.

Or was it? Thinking back, Hoseok couldn't recall them ever speaking to each other. Not directly. He'd only heard Kihyun call out directions during Quidditch or take House points from troublemakers in crowded corridors. Oozing authority, the Slytherin was always somewhere in the background. A wallflower, Hoseok's mom would call him, but he wasn't really. He could be cold, but he could be loud, and he could laugh.

So what the hell.

“It really hurts,” said Hoseok expectantly.

“Tell me about it.”

“See,” he exclaimed. “But we could forget about the pain for a bit if we talked. We could pass the time.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Aren't you bored, though?”

“To death.”

“ _See_!”

“Yeah. I see. That I'd rather die.”

Hoseok regarded him for a bit. “Should I start, then?”

“With dying?”

“Fine. Forget I said anything.”

 

“I think I was a third year when I found out that convenience stores don't sell charms that would make your day more convenient.”

It took Hoseok a good while to realize what Kihyun had just said, and it took him longer still to realize why he'd said it.

He smiled. “Is that it? Your attempt to humour me?”

“You wanted me to amuse you, so I'm being amusing. Take it or leave it.”

“So you've finally cracked?”

“I can just hold my tongue again.”

“Sounds tempting, but please, don't.” Movements slow, Hoseok turned to face him. He hissed several times, expecting rather than feeling his ribs riot. “How come it took you three years to figure that out? Don't you talk to Muggleborns?”

“Not really.”

Hoseok stiffened.

“Is that why you wouldn't talk to me?”

“Not really.”

“You're very chatty,” grunted Hoseok.

“Really?”

“But how did you _not know_?” he burst out. “Come on! A convenience store! Even wizards have those.”

“We don't really go shopping.”

“What do you mean, you don't really go shopping? What do you live off? Air?”

“Our family doesn't go out to buy stuff. We have long-standing contracts with shop owners who've been supplying us with groceries and robes and other necessities for decades.”

“That sounds...” Hoseok didn't finish.

Freaky. Like something from a Victorian novel.

Hoseok gave it some thought. He supposed old wizarding families were like that. But it didn't make it less freaky.

“Do you also have butlers and house elves and – and coach drivers and shit?”

“We don't employ house elves. And we don't have a coach driver because we don't own a carriage,” clipped Kihyun, and then he added: “Anymore.”

“Whoa.”

“We _do_ have a butler, though.”

“What about nursemaids?”

“As far as I can remember, I've always taken care of myself.”

“That's...” This time, Hoseok finished. “Sad.”

“What is sad about self-sufficiency?”

“It's sad when a tiny baby has to practice it.”

“Are you mourning my toddler self?”

Seeing him gauzed up and weighed down by casts and splints, Hoseok also kind of mourned Kihyun's present self.

He had a hunch that Kihyun wouldn't appreciate the sympathy though, so he swallowed that remark. He opened his mouth and closed it, opened it and closed it, coming up empty. In the end, he said the only thing that made sense in his head and didn't sound borderline offensive, or like he pitied the guy.

He murmured out a small “I suppose old wizarding families are like that.” Wincing, he wondered just how lame he sounded.

“What about your family?”

Hoseok's thoughts came to a standstill and ran in reverse, like water crashing into a wing dam and washing back in crested, frothy waves because it couldn't course forward.

“What about it?” he asked weakly.

“What are they like?”

“Should I tell you? You let me wait for hours. Maybe I should do the same,” teased Hoseok, though the way he smiled came off as empty. His heart wasn't in it; it wasn't even in his body, it seemed. It wasn't like teasing Jooheon or even his Gryffindor friends. With them, he knew the reaction beforehand. He knew they'd _let_ him.

With Kihyun, he walked on clouds. The path ahead of him pretended to be solid – the way clouds seem dense and full of fluff – the way Kihyun had decided to humour Hoseok. But one wrong step and he could fall, and fall hard. Harder than when they'd collided.

The thing was, Hoseok was a Hufflepuff, and a half-born, and that in itself could be a collision of the greatest kind where Kihyun was concerned.

“How very Slytherin of you,” said Kihyun, chasing the clouds away.

Hoseok wasn't sure what to do.

Except, as always, do _the thing_ anyway, even if the outcome sent him into free fall.

“You know that I'm a Half-blood, right?”

“Yeah.”

“My dad was a Muggle,” said Hoseok, as if explaining an equation to Kihyun. As if putting a disclaimer on himself, a little label that read “Do not talk unless allergic to these ingredients: non-magic blood.”

“That's what being a Half-blood usually means,” said Kihyun.

“I have Muggle ancestors.”

“So I've heard.”

“I'm not a Pure-blood.”

“Shocking.” For the first time, Kihyun stirred. His eyelids fluttered, breaking the statuesque quality his body held. “Saying that you are a Half-blood already entails all of the following statements, you know.”

Hoseok stared, and worked his mind to the pulp, and then a strange thought smiled at him that Kihyun was being wry with him.

“You don't mind?” he tried, careful.

“Why would I mind?”

“Because _you're_ a Pure-blood.”

“Right now I'm just bloody.”

Hoseok sniggered.

“Was that a pun?”

“Mayhaps.”

Quietly, Kihyun stirred again. He rested his cheek on the pillow, the grey underneath his eyes becoming positively purple. There really was quite a bit of blood caking the bridge of his nose. It didn't look crooked, though, and Hoseok couldn't tell if he was glad to see that, or not.

“So. Are you going to tell me about your family?” Kihyun paused. “For the sake of passing the time?”

Kihyun had a quaint way of demanding things while acting as though he was doing someone a favour.

“I only have my mum,” said Hoseok. The light behind Kihyun got too bright to bear, so Hoseok tilted his head to hypnotize the ceiling instead. “She grew up in an orphanage. Then she got her Hogwarts acceptance letter and spent the rest of her childhood here.”

“Interesting.”

“Is it?” muttered Hoseok.

“You could have more magical blood in you than you realize.”

“How so?”

“Your mother's parents could have been a Muggle and a witch, or a Muggle and a wizard. A lot of starcrossed lovers had to give up their children before the war.”

“But they could've been just two Muggles.”

“That's also a possibility.” Sheets rustled. Something told Hoseok that Kihyun copied his actions and turned to gaze at the ceiling again too. “It doesn't matter either way. We are all Half-bloods, one way or another.”

“You're not though. You're pure.” His tongue tingled as he said it.

“Even the purest family tree is bound to have at least one black sheep in it. It's not natural to always marry and bear children according to your blood status.”

Quicker than he could think about it, Hoseok let out a tiny “Thank you.”

“...For?”

“Not being a dick, I suppose,” laughed Hoseok, and then he laughed a little louder to drown out the first sound, and then it dawned on him he'd just made it worse and he let the laughter die. “Sorry.”

“For?”

“ _Sheesh_. Use full sentences.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For calling you a hypothetical dick.”

“No hypothetical offense taken.”

Hoseok gave an appreciative snort. His chest constricted, cutting the snort short. It took all of his good sense not to rub his pecs to ease the tension, reminding himself how counterproductive that would be. He'd just be breathing on ashes, setting the cinders blazing. But heck, he could use a soothing hand. His rib cage had swelled inside him, denting the flesh. Or that was what he imagined.

He wondered why bones had to hurt. It was just plain stupid.

He peeked at Kihyun and grimaced. Someone could just plop him into bone broth and stir him at this point.

“Does it hurt?” asked Hoseok without thinking, _as fucking always_.

“Being called a dick?”

“No.” Yes. No. “Your arms. And the rest.”

“I've had it worse.”

“How, by Helga's humongous tits, could you have had it worse?” Hoseok stared. “By breaking all four limbs?”

“That's the math.”

“But. But you've only played Quidditch for two years. Nobody has gone into an accident like that in the past two years.”

“It wasn't Quidditch-related.”

“Well, what was it related to?”

“That's relative.”

“Ki. Can I call you Ki? I'm used to calling people cute names. My mum calls me Seok, so I guess I got it from her. Do they call you Ki at home?”

“They don't. But my friends do.”

“Oh.” Hoseok hesitated. “So can I?”

“Why not.”

“Okay. Stop being so fucking vague, Ki.”

Kihyun snorted. He still sounded like an ocarina, an ornate one, and the tone that escaped him was crystal-clear.

“I can try.”

“Thank you.”

“So. We're back to family talk, aren't we?”

“I guess. Want to tell me about Berry the Butler?”

“His name isn't Berry.”

“Is it Benjamin?”

“It's not.”

“Is it Bartholomew?”

“He's not an Englishman, and his name doesn't start with a B,” clipped Kihyun.

“But that's a wasted opportunity,” opined Hoseok.

“I'll be sure to tell him that you think so.”

“He should just change his name.”

“And nationality.”

“Berry the Butler, a Brilliantly Baptized Briton.”

“I want to be moved to another bed, please.”

Hoseok chuckled. “I'd have to carry you. You're like one of those Japanese vases that got cracked and pieced back together by golden lacquer.”

“You have your way with words.”

“I just talk a lot.” _When_ he talked. When he was alone, he could go for days without a single sound.

He was used to being alone, with his mum always abroad.

Eerily tranquil, he heard himself pour that all at Kihyun. Then, he bated his breath.

“What does she do abroad?” inquired Kihyun.

“Work.”

“I kind of figured that out for myself, thank you. But what kind of work?”

“She tames dragons.”

“Oh,” said Kihyun. The flute-like lilt was back in his tone, weaving itself into the semi-dark of the sickroom in waves. “That's – unusual.”

“It's pretty badass, if you ask me.”

“It sure is. Is she gone all year-round?”

“Yeah, usually. It doesn't matter when I'm at school, but it gets lonely during summer.”

“Do you ever visit her?”

“Sometimes. Well, I'd say every other summer break, but never for long. I've been to Bulgaria before, and Armenia, and last year my mum took me to Indonesia, but it was... it was almost like being home, without her. It made no difference, you see, because I had to stay alone at her place while she was at work.”

Hoseok hushed himself down, and Kihyun took his sweet time answering. When he spoke up, he had his guards up.

“She must be terribly busy to take care of you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that she is.”

“Is your father...?”

“No, he's not dead. He just isn't around.”

“I see.”

“Mum sometimes says that she used to know for sure who my dad is, but the bigger and more handsome I get, the less sure she is.”

Smile fading, Hoseok sank his teeth into his tongue. He really had to make himself look like an underbred cumstain, didn't he. In front of someone so refined, out of all people.

Shit.

And he had to call himself handsome, too.

Shit and a half.

“I like your mum,” said Kihyun softly.

“You don't know her,” blurted Hoseok, veins in his temples humming.

“But I like her way of thinking. I like pragmatic people.”

That was the last thing either of them said till midnight.

 

“Fourteen?”

“Yes.”

“You were _fourteen_?”

“Do you want it written and signed, or...?”

“I didn't even know I had a cock when I was fourteen!” Hoseok hiss-shouted, scandalized.

They'd both been whispering. Forgetting all about his pain, Hoseok hoisted himself up to glare at Kihyun with unspoken accusation. He scowled a tiny scowl, fumbling over words which macerated in his mouth. Kihyun, for that matter, had his face as blank as a mirror before someone peers into it.

“I highly doubt that.”

“ _Four-teen_ ,” repeated Hoseok.

“It really isn't that big of a deal.”

“It is! Kids shouldn't snog at fourteen! And they definitely shouldn't go around giving blowjobs and receiving blowjobs!”

“I know.” Kihyun went silent. “I know that now.”

“All I cared about at fourteen were The Weird Sisters and broomsticks.”

“Same. But he wanted to try and so did I. So we did it.”

By “he” Kihyun meant Minhyuk. And, well, how could he _not_ mean Minhyuk? The two were inseparable. In class. Outside class. On the Quidditch field, when Minhyuk fired Hoseok's well-aimed Bludgers back at him to keep Kihyun safe. They were never apart.

And yet, Hoseok was less surprised to learn that the rumour about Yoo Kihyun liking boys was true than that he'd had his first experience with his best friend. It made sense – in a way – to give this part of you to someone you'd always keep around. But Hoseok wouldn't want to go so safe. He wouldn't want to share his first kiss with a friend just because he feared that there might be no one else to take it.

What could he know, though? Maybe Minhyuk was more than a friend to Kihyun.

“So you...” Hoseok began, a little calmer.

“Kissed and sucked each other off,” Kihyun finished for him.

He squirmed at the bluntness. “And then?”

“Then we agreed to never do it again, and then we broke that promise.”

“Are you guys together, then?”

Kihyun smiled, and he breathed out at the same time, so it came out almost as a chuckle.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why yes?”

“Well,” said Hoseok, all fired up; but the thing was, he liked that Kihyun smiled. And he liked that he kept smiling. “I guess it would be normal to date after that, no? I wouldn't want to do those things with someone I don't – love.”

“That's why you still haven't been kissed at the age of seventeen.”

“You said you won't hold it against me!” Hoseok bristled up.

“I obviously lied. I'm a slippy snake.” Even when bruised and bedridden, Kihyun could somehow sound cocky. He looked incredibly pleased with himself at that moment, so pleased that Hoseok wanted to roar a little. “Also. Who said I don't love Minhyuk?”

Hoseok wanted to roar a lot. He stilled in place like a piece of quickly cooling and thickening molten glass.

“And do you?”

“You don't love your best friend?”

“Yeah, but it's not that kind of love.”

“Love is love.”

“Well, sorry for not sucking my best friend's dick.”

“Don't say sorry to me, say sorry to him.” Kihyun's eyes crinkled, and Hoseok thought of lovely lunettes with paintings in them, those in chapels and even in some parts of the Hogwarts Castle. “He's cute, you know. I'd try it if I were you.”

“You did not just call Jooheon cute,” whispered Hoseok, feeling tremendously fussy for some reason. Feeling left out.

“He _is_ cute.”

“He's younger than you. He _still_ has no idea what cocks are for,” said Hoseok, sensing his mouth set into a sour line.

To that, Kihyun just laughed; a wind-chime kind of laugh that Hoseok wanted to keep listening to, but also wanted to puzzle out.

Soon, the sound faded out, and Kihyun sighed.

“Speaking of cocks.”

“Yeah?” Hoseok flushed.

“I seem to be in dire need to empty mine.”

“Huh?”

“I gotta take a leak.”

“Christ. Just _say so_ , lord Byron.”

“We're back to Britons whose names start with a B, I see.” Contained, Kihyun jolted his arms, not unlike a tiny beetle on its back. “Also, I would be grateful if you could call the nurse. You don't have to get up – there's this spell for calling help – but I can't use my wand.”

“I'm not waking that poor woman up. She was fussing over us the whole afternoon. She deserves some rest.”

Grunting, Hoseok sat up, waiting for a heartbeat or two to see whether his body could take it. His chest ached, but not unbearably so, and his limbs worked like clockwork when he put his feet on the ground and got up.

“What are you doing?” asked Kihyun, sizing him up with placidity Hoseok wouldn't expect from a Slytherin who was obviously left at someone else's mercy. At a Hufflepuff's mercy. A huge Hufflepuff's mercy.

“Carrying you.”

“You don't want to do that.”

“And why is that?” Hoseok raised his eyebrows. Did the Danny DeVito think that he wouldn't be able to pick him up? If yes, Kihyun had a big storm coming. Plasters and all, he couldn't weigh more than sixty kilo, while Hoseok, as he was pleased to announce, weighed close to ninety.

They were a mountain and a mosquito, which was why Kihyun lay in front of him so battered.

“You don't want to do that,” repeated Kihyun, slower this time, “because you would have to help me inside the stall.”

“So?”

“You would have to help me _inside the stall_.”

“I already said I'd take you there – oh...”

Kihyun was looking wry again, giving him that side glance that burned like rime, and Hoseok treaded water for a minute. Sheepish, he put his hands up and down.

“You mean...”

“You'd have to hold it for me, yeah.”

Hoseok couldn't believe that the first cock he'd ever get to see would belong to Yoo Kihyun.

That was just his luck.

He'd get to touch a cock in the single most unsexy way possible.

But he'd get to touch a cock.

“Are you composing a whole Odyssey in that fluffy head of yours?” said Kihyun.

“Shush, I'm thinking.”

“I can see that. Literally, I can see you change your mind every two seconds.” Kihyun gazed up at him, hands clasped on top of his chest. “You have a very expressive face.”

“Great.”

“And I, sadly, have a very full bladder. So think fast.”

“Okay, I – I'll carry you.”

“Please, just call the nurse,” sighed Kihyun.

“No way. Won't it be worse for you if she has to do it?”

Kihyun didn't respond right away.

“Yeah, but I've already mortified myself in front of the whole school today. It can't get much worse than that. At some point, you just cross the limit of no return, and you don't care from then on.”

“Please. It wasn't even embarrassing. We just crashed into each other.”

“I crashed into you. You stayed on your broomstick. I went down like a fly.”

“It was pretty fucking scary.” The clack of wood on wood – the slam of bodies – the fall. The dark chasm of Kihyun's mouth, parted but silent as the void between them had grown. It still wrung Hoseok's stomach out to recall any of it. “I was so stupefied I couldn't even dive down for you.”

“Good. I would have died if you had bridal-carried me in front of everyone.”

Huffing, Hoseok cracked his knuckles. This famed Slytherin pride.

“Get your casket ready, then.”

Kihyun didn't budge.

“If you insist on carrying me, perhaps it would be better to use the Feather-Light Charm.”

“You're already as light as a feather. I think,” said Hoseok, studying his small figure with a critical once-over.

“But these are not,” replied Kihyun, another diminutive jolt running through his arms as he motioned to his casts. “And I won't be able to hold onto you.”

“Hmm.”

“Or I could just walk. I have one healthy leg and two crutches.”

“And nothing to grab those crutches with,” Hoseok reminded him dryly.

“Well.”

“And it still wouldn't solve the cock-holding problem.”

“You know, I usually hold hands before I hold cocks.”

“How many cocks have you even – it doesn't matter,” Hoseok changed his mind halfway through.

“Just one.”

“Oh.”

“But I held hands with Min before I touched it.”

“Nice to know.”

“Nice to know that it's nice to know.” Kihyun kept his eyes upturned. They looked lighter in the lamplight. Somewhere between peach and brown, and the sheerest glint of gold. “So.”

“So. Wanna hold hands?” asked Hoseok. “I wouldn't want you to break the ritual.”

“No. No, I'm good. Thanks. Just do it – if you're still okay with it.”

“I'm okay with it,” said Hoseok, hands stinging as if submerged into alcohol.

He'd held hands before, so it was fine with him to skip that part. It would have been nice to brush up on the matter, though. What if Kihyun had some special hand-holding tricks Hoseok could use to learn?

It never hurt to stay updated.

 

He didn't get to hold Kihyun's hand, naturally, but he got to hold the entire Yoo Kihyun (buoyed by the Feather-Light Charm), and he also got to hold... the other Kihyun.

Which rested in his grip quite chubby, for such a skinny guy. Quite girthy.

But Hoseok wasn't looking.

“You done?” asked Hoseok with his throat tight when the restroom filled up with sudden silence.

“Yes.” It was unfathomable, but Kihyun replied with such dignity that _Hoseok_ felt naked.

Because he had to support the body leaning into his side and simultaneously handle Kihyun's privates, Hoseok took awhile to proceed, huffing lightly. Fumbling, he dangled the thing in the air to get off the lastest drops. It would be easier if he weren't too shy to peek.

Sour as a bag of Strawberry Sour Strips, Hoseok really goddamn regretted not getting that hand-holding out of this. The whole ordeal would haunt him, he knew. There was no way he'd _not_ remember this moonlight-flooded, silvered restroom and the sound of voices whispering over walls whenever he saw Kihyun in the castle corridors after this.

“Stop it,” said Kihyun, a familiar sharpness honing his tone into a thousand scythes about to cut. But as much as it was familiar, the sternness seemed out of place because Kihyun had been so mellowed out ever since they'd woken up in the hospital wing.

“Stop what?” Hoseok echoed dumbly.

“Stop shaking it. You know the saying. You shake it more than twice, you're playing with it.”

“I'm _not_!” defended Hoseok. “I just don't want you to go back with a piss stain!”

“Well, just _wipe_ it. Don't pull it like it's a bell rope.”

“You are really goddamn bossy for someone who's literally in my hands.”

“I trust you.”

Nobody spoke. Kihyun breathed in and out. Very evenly.

They eventually got out of the stall and crossed the room to get to the sinks. Toiling away, Hoseok decided that washing Kihyun's hands wasn't too far from holding them, and that his hands were almost as smooth to the touch as his cock.

Was it a common thing? He never noticed when he held his own.

He should investigate.

When Hoseok carried Kihyun back, the charm began to slowly wear off. Kihyun didn't realize it, and Hoseok bit his heavy breathing back and trudged on. How could he not, when Kihyun lay so curled and calm in his arms and when he softly closed his eyes to escape the silver-white beams of shine from outside which fell over his face as they walked past windows.

Hoseok really hoped Kihyun's nose would come out of this unscathed.

 

Jooheon came by in the morning with a copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ and a basketful of apples. Sitting at the edge of Hoseok's bunk with a slight slouch that became his boyish figure, Jooheon took proper care to stay turned away from Kihyun, cold-shouldering him as hard as he could. He positively pouted when Hoseok offered one of the hand-picked apples to Kihyun, but the Slytherin wordlessly refused and got back to staring at the ceiling until the end of Jooheon's visit.

Nobody came to see Kihyun.

The boys slept through most of the day. When they woke up, they were no longer alone in the sickroom, as a golden-haired Hufflepuff girl sat cross-legged on the bed by Kihyun's right and doodled something. A branched out wisteria sprouted out of her ear, its lilac little blossoms gathering in her hair.

Hoseok eventually got Kihyun to eat an apple, though he had to slice it for him and feed him. He didn't quite mind because he found out that Kihyun had a very soft upper lip and a dry bottom lip and he wondered how that worked. He shared an apple with the girl as well, and in return she doodled him, and he asked if his nose was really this big, and she gravely said that yes, it was really big.

Kihyun snorted.

The Hufflepuff girl left before dinner even though there still remained a few flower buds in her ear. She declared that she wasn't going to miss out on rhubarb pie for that tiny bit of spring – and then she was gone.

Things got a little tense when she'd left. It was an oddity, how easily he and Kihyun had gotten used to being alone together, and how easily they'd fallen out of it.

They went mute; Hoseok's mind went amok. He searched for something that would help him to tide them over, to talk again, but it was as if all words had ceased to exist. The only thing that existed to Kihyun was that damn ceiling.

And still, nobody came.

 

Hoseok lay halfway between sleep and consciousness, the filmy imprint of an incoming dream forming behind his eyelids, when a rustle and a whisper tore him out of that haze. He opened his eyes to an unbroken darkness weighing upon him. A breath of breeze ran over him as something physical but blended with the black passed by his bed.

Footsteps. A chuckle. A whispered _Kihyun_.

And then, _Lumos_ , a little more throaty.

Two voices.

Hoseok screwed his lids shut. He willed himself not to move, not to even twitch. He hoped his lashes didn't flutter as an unseen but felt streak of silver wandlight shone on him, the person who'd cast the spell checking if he was awake.

It lasted for what Hoseok thought were minutes, the light like a room-sized dawn parching his face. Eventually, it faded and went out, the bearer of the wand deciding that it was safe to stay.

But it wasn't, and the visitors knew. Hoseok heard them say something about the nurse and about the caretaker and about _the Hufflepuff._ About the curfew and about Hoseok grassing on them. About _being quiet, come on, Minhyuk_.

Minhyuk dismissed Yoongi with a “Please. He's a dead log.”

“Just don't make a ruckus,” said Kihyun, as good as voiceless.

Controlling his mimic muscles, Hoseok tried not to frown.

Was he in on it? Kihyun? The famed Yoo Kihyun whose polished Prefect badge and shoeshines were never short of perfection?

That just didn't add up. But it was also breath-taking to some extent, if someone asked him.

Minhyuk put his lit up wand on the nightstand on the other side of Kihyun's bed. Its shimmery shine dimmed in half, becoming bluish instead of pure silver. There was just enough light for Hoseok to open his eyes and see without being seen.

The two Slytherins climbed atop of Kihyun's bed, avoiding his immobile limbs. Yoongi unscrewed a bottle of what Hoseok assumed was Butterbeer with his teeth. Of course, it wasn't Butterbeer. Hoseok's nostrils stung as a faint scent of Firewhisky reached him.

Minhyuk took the first swing, fondling his own breast pockets with his free hand. He pulled out an envelope. The neck of the bottle still jammed between his teeth, Minhyuk waved the letter and laid it on Kihyun's caved chest.

“'S from your dad,” said Minhyuk, rasping the whisky down. “Can you move your hands at all? Should I open it for you?”

“It's okay.” Kihyun let the letter untouched. “You could've come during visiting hours.”

“And what would be the fun in that?”

He passed the bottle around.

“Did my dad send anything else?” asked Kihyun, and right after, to Hoseok's utter amazement, he lifted his head so Yoongi could pour some of the Firewhisky inside his parted lips.

“Yeah,” said Minhyuk. He reached out to smooth Kihyun's hair down, leaving a peck at the crown of his head as he did so. “A scarf and a box of sweets.”

“Well, where is it?”

“I figured I better wait and bring it all tomorrow. Like, I don't want to give the dude much credit –” (He gestured to Hoseok.) “– but I guess he'd notice there was something fishy if he woke up and suddenly there was a bunch of stuff on your bed that hadn't been there before.”

“You could've just brought it earlier,” insisted Kihyun.

“Again, what would be the fun in that? Do I look basic to you?”

“Do you want me to answer, or do you want to keep your dignity?”

“Please. Like I've had any to begin with.”

“Keep it down, guys,” murmured Yoongi, a sign of a slur creeping into his voice. He took a deeper swallow this time.

For his part, Hoseok wondered what would be worse. Staying silent and eavesdropping for what could turn out to be hours, or speaking up. An overflow of tension frothed over him, spilling from his bruised ribs over the rest of his rib cage and beyond.

He held his tongue.

 

Minhyuk stayed behind longer than Yoongi. He nestled himself beside Kihyun and tapped his casts one by one, listening to the hollow sounds.

“Does it hurt?” he whispered.

“You mean when you hit it?”

Minhyuk tapped the casts again, this time quicker, with the dexterity of a drummer. Oddly, Hoseok could envision Kihyun's expression. He didn't see it. Didn't want to. He had his eyes closed now, and nothing would bring him to open them. But he could imagine it.

“So does it?”

“No.”

“Good. Up for a sneaky handjob?”

“ _No_.”

“Blowjob?”

“Min, you're a fucking nutjob.”

“You want me to lick your nuts?”

Kihyun grudged a choked chuckle.

“No.”

“Just kissing, then?”

“...Yeah. Okay, yeah.”

Time went. And sped up. And all Hoseok heard was breathing – broken, wet.

 

There wasn't a single clock in the sickroom, so Hoseok counted the tender pulses in his temples instead of seconds and minutes and hours. Well, he was fairly sure that Minhyuk hadn't been snogging Kihyun for literal hours, but he'd snogged him hard, and he'd snogged him good. The giggle Minhyuk let out when he pulled away and got up could attest to that.

“You sure you don't want a hand?” he bubbled.

“No, you donkey. But,” rushed Kihyun, “tuck me in? So it's not visible?”

“Tuck _you_ in, or tuck _it_ under the waistband?” teased Minhyuk.

“Whatever you prefer.”

“You know, I would, but you scorned my beautiful, moisturized hands when I offered, so...”

Breezily, Minhyuk started to walk away.

“Min,” Kihyun whispered after him. “Min!”

“Now you have four rock hard limbs,” singsonged Minhyuk as he passed by Hoseok's bed.

“Cocks are not limbs!” said Kihyun tersely.

“Depends on the size. Good night, Record!”

“Why Record?”

“Because you're broken. Get it?”

The door clicked as Minhyuk vanished with a cackle. After he'd gone, the night got louder and quieter at the same time. Kihyun spat out a few flowery curses. The words rang in the dark like particularly small but heavy coins ricocheting off the floor.

Exhaling, Hoseok edged himself up on his elbows.

“Want me to tuck you in?”

He cringed at himself.

In his bunk, Kihyun cringed as well.

“...Would you?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Hoseok hopped off the bed. And froze. “Which part do I tuck?”

“Just throw a blanket over me.” Kihyun coloured.

The pale blush dusting his skin took some of the famed edge off him; some of the sharpness.

It made Hoseok bold.

“Why? Are you suddenly against cock-holding too? I thought it was just hand-holding.”

“You seem to be pretty hung up on holding my hand.”

Now it was Hoseok's turn to colour.

“You seem to be pretty hung up on not holding mine. After I held your cock, too.”

Shadowed by Hoseok hovering over him, Kihyun gazed up. A dainty, almost pretty crease appeared above the splint he wore over the bridge of his nose. Out of the blue it came, out of the blue it went.

And when it was gone, Kihyun's face cleared up as a lake after rain.

“Do you want to hold my hand?” he asked, very serene.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Will there be more cock-holding?”

Kihyun pretended to ponder.

“That depends too.”

“On what?”

“Whether you're up for it or not. For the whole package.”

Eyebrows quirking up, Hoseok threw a pointed look at the ridge under Kihyun's covers.

“You seem to be _up_ for it. The whole package.”

“What can I say. I like being kissed.”

“By Minhyuk?”

“You're not kissing me, so you can't complain.”

“Shit,” said Hoseok softly. He sat his suddenly small self on the corner of Kihyun's bunk, shoulders heavy. Everything heavy. “You'd kiss me?”

“Are you seriously asking me if I would kiss you?”

“Yes, I'm asking!”

“I literally just offered you the whole package. When it's actually whole again, that is. Which should be in a couple of days. I asked the nurse for a double dose of Skele-Gro.”

“But... double the dose means double the pain.”

“Well.”

“Ki, what the fuck.”

Placid, Kihyun lifted two fingers. Two chubby fingertips peeked from under the cast.

He made a fucking peace sign.

“Kiss it better.”

“I won't. I won't even touch you until you're not hurting anymore,” chided Hoseok.

“But you will, later. When I'm in one piece again. Right?”

Gentled down by the waver in Kihyun's words, Hoseok let out a definite “Yep.”

“Not until then?”

“I said what I said.”

“What if I need to pee, though?”

“You can pee into this.” Hoseok picked up the empty Firewhisky bottle and dangled it. As in an afterthought, he stared at the bottle and through the blackish glass. “Ki?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it you speaking, or is it this?”

“Me. Again, the whole package.”

“Stop talking about your package,” sighed Hoseok.

“It's all soft now, by the way.”

“Are you sure you're interested in me when you snog other boys in my presence and go soft once you're alone with me?”

“Hoseok, you've been so goddamn kind to me this whole time even though I literally put you in hospital. You fed me apples. How can I not be interested?”

Hoseok gaped. “So it's not because I'm handsome?”

“It's a little bit because you're built like the Bú-Tik Palace.”

“These palace-sized pecs is what put you in hospital, though,” said Hoseok dryly.

Kihyun smiled.

“Lucky me.”

A weary grin brightening him up, Hoseok sighed. He supposed that he shouldn't question Slytherins.

Especially if they had lovely frowns and fancied him a little bit.

 

“Seok?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you perhaps get rid of the bottle? I'd do it, but...” Kihyun trailed off. The white planes of his casts shifted beneath the shadows.

“On it.”

“Thank you. And Seok?”

“Yes?”

“I really want to.” The bedsheets murmured. “Hold your hand.”

Sweetness filling him to the core, Hoseok grinned, glad that Kihyun couldn't see him. He shyly tapped the glass.

“ _Evanesco_.”

 

There was a tinge of mint on Kihyun's breath although his mouth tasted like nothing but breathless groans.

A weightless film of tension hung between them. The tension of not being kissed but thinking about it. Kihyun was delaying it – denying it – and Hoseok would bodily take the kiss if it weren't for the gloss in Kihyun's gaze, the spark of a smile with which he stared back.

They stood so close that they _could_ kiss; they could fuck, even. But they held each other in a rough grasp instead, stroking, hushing each other's gasps with pointed looks.

Hoseok couldn't even see Kihyun's cock as he worked him quicker and quicker, that was how close they were.

“Good?” whispered Hoseok, brushing their noses together.

“Yeah.” It was a goddamn _moan_. Kihyun adjusted his grip, palm tighter, thumb grazing the spot under under the tip of Hoseok's cock and leaving him contemplate how come he'd never noticed he was so sensitive there.

Watching Hoseok set his jaw, Kihyun rubbed the tender triangle of skin. He leaned in for another non-kiss, pausing just shy of Hoseok's mouth. And if he hadn't kissed Kihyun a thousand times before, the tiny airless abyss that he so religiously kept between them would send Hoseok seething.

Bodies rigid, they pressed their hips tighter together. Hoseok used one arm to pull Kihyun to him by the thigh, the robes gathered under Kihyun rustling over the stone windowsill he sat on. Hoseok groaned.

One more movement and it would really look like they were fucking.

“Shh,” said Kihyun, a hiss rather than a word, his lips wetly touching Hoseok's before parting again. He observed as Hoseok trembled, self-control thrashing through his shoulders and throat, tightening them. He knew his veins had gotten swollen by now because Kihyun smiled that satisfied Slytherin smile that told Hoseok he was about to come earlier than his own body told him.

And yeah, he was getting there. He clutched Kihyun's thigh and crushed their hips together, never slowing down, never letting go of Kihyun's cock.

Shaky, Kihyun breathed out and did _that thing_ again. That _I'll touch you in places nobody has ever touched before, not even you_ thing, and Hoseok lost it. He took that kiss as he peaked all over Kihyun's hand.

Bliss hit him, coming and going in different wavelengths and lasting and lasting. It lasted so long, his cock never calming down until Kihyun released it, that Hoseok forgot who he was and where they were.

Finishing with a whimper, he thanked all gods that he had his tongue in Kihyun's mouth, caught gently between his teeth, because he would have cried out otherwise. He would have dropped his guard and come for Kihyun to hear, completely careless. So what that they weren't entirely out of sight. So what that the windowless niche lay at the very end of the corridor.

People tended to avoid this place unless they came here to snog, but those coming here to snog didn't exactly expect to encounter two choked up boys with cum-crusted hands.

Hoseok rested his forehead on Kihyun's and gazed down. Fuck. Kihyun was done too, and Hoseok had missed it. Quiet as always, Kihyun trembled as Hoseok continued to jerk him off. The sight almost awakened the dormant tease in Hoseok as he toyed with the idea of going on, just to see Kihyun choke back another orgasm, too soon and too strong, and too good not to let his restraint slip away from him.

Relenting as a particularly potent shudder wrecked through him, Hoseok let go and brought Kihyun into a bone-cracking hug. Kihyun seized him back, thighs and arms and all. He whispered something, but Hoseok didn't catch it. He was too distracted by the tremors that became his own as he clung to Kihyun and Kihyun clung to him, and by the hand on the nape of his neck. Kihyun held onto him like life onto spring.

He had soft hands – so soft – and it hardly made sense for a boy or a Quidditch player to be so delicate; delicate on the outside. On the inside, he was steel. The finest forged steel that went on in layers and layers and led to an even softer core. He was many-faced, and fragile, and the first one to bring this all forth in Hoseok too. Hoseok was learning to take Kihyun as a mosaic of distinctly coloured glass instead of a solid glass sheet, and an unfinished mosaic at that.

It was fun, mixing self-discovery along with other discoveries in the aftermath of a rushed mutual wank. Shyly, Hoseok grinned at the thought.

“See,” he murmured. “Isn't it better here?”

Kihyun gave a grumpy grunt which Hoseok knew for a fact wasn't grumpy at all. Of course, Kihyun had had grand plans to do this right. He'd talked about the Prefects' Bathroom and about the Room of Requirement and even about a booked bedroom in Hogsmeade. Somehow, all of these plans and places struck Hoseok as less _and_ more seedy at the same time than this secluded snog-corner. The thing was, Hoseok wasn't a planner. When he fell, he fell. And that was it.

And where Kihyun was concerned, Hoseok had already fallen twice. Like heck he would wait for “the right opportunity” or whatever it was the small Slytherin had schemed about.

Unless.

“Don't grumble,” said Hoseok, taking an open-lipped kiss. “You'll have it your way when we do the other thing.”

“You mean – when you let me finger you?”

Hoseok cringed. “Do you _have_ to say it out loud?”

“You act as if we didn't just do all of this. In public. _Out loud_.”

And here he was again. All steel.

The best thing that had ever come crashing into Hoseok's life.

In a whisper, Kihyun waved his wand and pointed at the mess they'd made.

“ _Evanesco_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I lurk [here](https://twitter.com/mrtvej_pes)  
> Proofread by [molly_mad](https://twitter.com/molly_madd)


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